Despite several high-level bilateral interactions over the years, India and Pakistan have never enjoyed friendly and cordial relations. And people from both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) have been facing the brutal consequences of this animosity for years now.

The
constantly deteriorating Indo-Pak relations are worsening the chances
of securing
Kulbhushan
Sudhir Jadhav's
release,
a former Indian naval officer who was arrested in Pakistan's
Balochistan province over charges of espionage.

In
Focus

This
47-year-old
Indian national, accused by Pakistan for carrying out subversive
activities was
awarded a death sentence on April 10, 2017 through
a Field General Court Martial (FGCM).
Pakistan has been constantly stressing that Jadhav was working for
Research &
Analysis Wing (RAW), which is India's external intelligence agency
and their security forces arrested him in a counterintelligence
operation that was carried out in Balochistan on March 3,
2016.

Pakistan
government also reiterates that Jadhav illegitimately
entered
their country via Iran and was fuelling a separatist movement in
Karachi as well as in Balochistan. In short, Pakistani authorities
maintain that Jadhav was trying to destabilise
their country by carrying out subversive activities.

Not
just that, Pakistani authorities also released
a video in the media showing Jadhav confessing
his crime.
The video shows Jadhav admitting
everything about his involvement in instigating people to carry out
anti-national activities within Pakistan. In the video, answering
to a
question,
Jadhav admits
that he was
involved in a variety of activities which led to disturbance of
law
and order in Pakistan, especially in Karachi and Balochistan on the
insistence of Indian
intelligence agency RAW. He also admitted
that RAW had
provided financial support to Baloch separatists to strengthen their
movement apart from revealing that he was
still a part of Indian Navy.

However,
India does
not believe
in the "Pakistani version" of Jadhav's
story and continues
to maintain
that he was
illegally abducted by the Pakistan army
from Iran. And if, India successfully manages to prove the
authenticity of this argument in the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) during the upcoming hearings, it would
help in bringing a lot more clarity to this case. In fact, it will
put a big question mark on the entire story created by Pakistani
authorities
wherein they claim that they had
arrested Jadhav from Balochistan during a counterintelligence
operation.

Although,
India agrees that Jadhav
was a former naval officer, it has
rubbished
the allegations made by Pakistan that he was working as
a
RAW operative
at the time of his
arrest. The Indian government, which has dragged Pakistan to
the ICJ to prove Jadhav's
innocence
says that he had taken a premature retirement from the
Indian
Navy
and later
started his own business. Giving further clarity on the current
occupation of Jadhav, India said
that he had
been running
a cargo
business in Iran.

Furthermore,
Indian authorities have strongly condemned the video
footage
showing the confession of Jadhav that was released
earlier in the media, saying that the
entire video
was
doctored and
the whole purpose behind creating the
video by
Pakistan was
to
defame India in front of the international community.

What's
even more frustrating and interesting at the same time is that
whenever
India sought consular access to Jadhav, Pakistan always rejected its
plea which
strongly questions its legitimacy and integrity in the ongoing case.
Since Jadhav is an Indian national, it becomes India's right to have
consular access to him so that more clarity can be achieved in the
case and he be given
a
fair trial.
India must get consular access to Jadhav in order to defend the truth
in the best way possible. Pakistan's denial to India's request for
consular access to Jadhav is a clear violation of the Vienna
Convention. However,
not
just once or twice, but
Pakistan has rejected India's plea for consular access to
Jadhav 13
times till
now.

India
also requested access to the charge sheet filed in Jadhav's
case but Pakistan rejected that
request too.

Though,
the International Court of Justice stayed Jadhav's execution on May
18,
2017
till the final verdict is out, India still needs to take a lot of
proactive steps to bring the ball in its court.

On
June 8,
2017,
the legal teams from both India and Pakistan again met at
the ICJ in
The Hague, Netherlands
to take Jadhav's
case a step further, wherein Pakistan
even requested for the appointment of its own judge on the bench hearing
the case. Since
Pakistan is trying its level best to hang Jadhav as soon as possible,
India will have to fight this case in a decisive manner to bring the
truth out
in the open.

Being
an Indian, it's my humble request to my fellow-countrymen and the
concerned authorities that
let's take a pledge today that we will leave no stone unturned to
stop Pakistan from legally murdering Kubhushan
Jadhav
and try
to bring him
home alive.